Tag: location

This post may come as a surprise to most of you, especially since I haven’t mentioned anything or gave any hints about moving. Before Christmas my husband and I decided to put our little house on the market. After the new year, we were lucky enough to have a few viewings and after awhile, received and accepted an offer.

As some of you may know, the husband is a history lecturer for the Open University. That means he works mostly at home, except when he has tutorials/lectures that brings him to Exeter or Plymouth. We only have two bedrooms in our little cottage. It was perfectly fine when it was just me, him and the Mutt. But when little T arrived, then Boots, and Doc, our little house has become even smaller than it really is. Can you imagine trying to get some work done with a three-year-old and excitable pup yelling/yelping in the background? I’m actually amazed that he has managed this long. But the time has come to move to a house with a study, so we’ve decided to take the plunge and look for a house with a third bedroom and maybe even a bigger garden. Guess what that might just be in the offing for us soon!

You can’t imagine though how stressful this month has been. We’ve viewed about eight properties. Made an offer for a house that had lovely views but needed a bit of work, but the bank who owns it, refused our humble offer, which means back to the drawing board folks!.

My question is, what’s more important to you, the property or the location?

I know that you can’t change location and can easily change the property, but what if you don’t want to stretch your budget and have to do renovations/refurbishments that would mean robbing the bank or at least your bank account? The husband and I are allergic to debt and we’ve always been debt free, but since we live in an expensive area where a lot of the houses here (especially in our present village) are second homes or holiday properties, this move would mean a small mortgage. Sometimes though I wonder if we are mad to actually want to be in debt no matter how small it may be?

Anyway, my husband still wants to live near the coast, but as mentioned, prices here can be a bit exhorbitant. Whereas I am willing to move inland to get more space for our little family as long as the house and place is somewhere we wouldn’t mind living in for at least the next ten years.

After all that hullabaloo with trying to make a deal with the bank who owned the house with the beautiful view, I just feel that I’m not up for a project anymore, especially since I doubt if my husband could manage living/working in a house while it’s being done. Also, can you imagine little T running around while there is some building-works going on? At the moment, I just want to move in, unpack then de-stress. It doesn’t really matter to me if I don’t have this view from our window, what am I saying? If we win millions of pounds in the lottery, why not? Perhaps, it’s time to start buying tickets now? So if you know any lucky numbers, please mention them in your comments 🙂

The photo above was taken in Polzeath (not far from our little village) where UK readers will know that properties here can easily cost a million pounds. This is also where David Cameron, the present UK Prime Minister likes to go on his summer breaks with his family. Yes, you get the picture.

Over this stressful month, I’ve learned a few things though about this whole selling/buying malarkey:

1. Expect the properties to be smaller in reality, though the people who’ve viewed ours have commented that the rooms in our house looks so much bigger than in the photos.

2. A house that might not have moved you in your first visit might actually be the most practical house for you and your family.

3. And another thing that really surprised me is that estate agents in the UK are not a bad breed AT ALL. You see, before all this began, my husband warned me about them, how they can be sneeky and lie through their teeth just to sell a property. So far J, the estate agent we’ve been working with has been really genuinely nice to us and especially to little T. He always makes it a point to have a real conversation with her and not just the usual “How are you today?” kind of thing and then ignore her for the next minutes or so, that to me makes him a really good estate agent 🙂

Having mentioned the lessons learned, there is one property that seems to be the most practical one for us. Let’s just say the house doesn’t have much character or soul (as my husband said as we stepped out the door), but it is practical and most importantly we can just move in and just do minor things like give it a new lick of paint. And did I mention that it is chain free? That will definitely save us the stress of waiting for the vendors to look for a place to live. This has also made me realised that I’ve actually matured! That I’m finally growing-up at the tender age of 40. The old me wouldn’t even think of moving into a house that looked like the rest of the houses in the street. I’d insist on something with more charm or character. Oh wow, the impossible has happened 🙂 Did I mention that the house is still near the coast, and to our present village, which will mean that little T won’t be so far from her best-friend F and play-school. I don’t even know why I mentioned that, since she’s off play-school again. I’m not even getting into that right now, that would only add to my stress and insomnia!

Or who knows? We might just surprise you guys once more and head off to the city? You’ll never know! Seriously though, do send us some of your positive vibes and happy thoughts, that we find a place that’s really right for us soon! And don’t forget those lucky numbers! 😉

This is a sponsored post, however, the photo and all words are by Yours Truly.

“Accept the children the way we accept trees—with gratitude, because they are a blessing—but do not have expectations or desires. You don’t expect trees to change, you love them as they are.” - Isabelle Allende